For a While
by JustCallMeEmrys
Summary: Even at the start of their partnership, Roger Mayfield Murtaugh thought that there was something off about Martin Riggs. His inexplicable durability and speed, how his teeth sometimes look too sharp and his eyes glow with a white light... Murtaugh decides that there is no way in hell Riggs is human, and vows to get to the bottom of whatever is up with his new partner.
1. Chapter 1

Even at the start of their partnership, Roger Mayfield Murtaugh thought that there was something _off_ about Martin Riggs.

At first, he wrote it off as Riggs being absolutely jackshit insane, because he definitely was that. But it was more than just Riggs's general disregard for his safety, and his penchant for following his id.

There was an odd... _air_ around Riggs; a peculiar chill that hung heavy on Murtaugh's shoulders and pooled in his lungs. Murtaugh thought that it was just nerves, his brain and body playing tricks on him, turning his stress over getting such a reckless partner into a tangible response to try and warn him away.

But even after working a few cases with him, that feeling didn't dissipate. It lingered. It followed Riggs like a weird puppy. And Murtaugh knew that it wasn't just _him_ that felt it, because he saw the bravado of many criminals falter when Riggs simply entered the room, even when the man was too hungover to so much as glance in their direction.

And then there was his inexplicable ability to just be _anywhere_. It was like the man could teleport. Murtaugh noticed it the first week they were working together. Riggs could catch up to just about anyone, always coming out of nowhere to blindside a fleeing suspect that Murtaugh had no hope of catching up to. More than once, Murtaugh swore that Riggs had moved across a room in the blink of an eye. Locked rooms weren't off-limits to the scruffy man, either; every time Murtaugh finally got into them, Riggs would already be on the other side of the door, ready with a snarky comment on how he had to wait for the older man.

Murtaugh was willing to ignore those things. They were, after all, easy enough to explain away. Riggs, as an ex-SEAL, was basically a trained killer, so it stood to reason that he would be faster, more slippery, and more instinctively intimidating than most other people.

But Murtaugh was certain that no amount of SEAL training could explain how Riggs's form just seemed to _fall apart_ sometimes, especially when he was in the corner of Murtaugh's eye. The closet comparison Murtaugh could draw was when a TV or computer froze and glitched, the picture sheering and becoming pixelated at the edges. Something similar seemed to happen to Riggs sometimes, but only when Murtaugh wasn't focusing; the moment he did, the strange distortion was gone.

The first time he saw the distortion very clearly-and confirmed that it wasn't just his imagination-was when Riggs was jabbed with a cattle prod on a case. Riggs had cracked a joke while twitching and riding out the remnants of the electric current still coursing through his body. But Murtaugh hadn't really registered that, because Riggs had gone fuzzy at the edges again, jumping and shuddering as if he was a cartoon character that had just stepped into ice-cold water.

Then Riggs had sucked in a breath, his form pulling back together, and he had moved on with his day as if he hadn't just gotten jabbed in the abdomen with fifteen thousand volts of electricity.

It was then that Murtaugh decided that _yes_ , there was something off about Martin Riggs.

And he was going to find out what.

* * *

Murtaugh, for a while, was able to ignore the strange things about Riggs. His oddness didn't seem to hurt anybody or really cause a problem, and part of his pursuit for as low stress a life as possible was to just _ignore weird shit_ as best as he could, so his attempt to figure Riggs out was more of a secondary objective in their partnership.

That is, up until Murtaugh got a glimpse of something that made him think that maybe Riggs's weirdness wasn't as benign as he thought.

/

It was during the case with Marcus and the robbery-inclined valets that Murtaugh saw it. Riggs had stayed behind to secure the other robbers while Murtaugh chased Marcus down. In that moment, talking Marcus down from doing something he'd really regret was the only thing Murtaugh was focusing on. Marcus was a good kid, a friend to his son since elementary school; Murtaugh had no intention of letting him throw his life away just because he had gotten caught up in something awful.

He hadn't even heard Wiley behind him, hidden by a parked car. However, he _did_ hear the heavy footfalls of his partner as he sprinted out of the broken-into house, and he definitely heard when Riggs screamed his name as if he had been shot.

Which wasn't too far off the mark, because when Murtaugh spun around, he was staring down the barrel of a handgun, Wiley's finger already tightening on the trigger.

There was no time. Murtaugh knew that. He had tucked his gun away in a show of trust towards Marcus; a trust that he would have never demonstrated if he had known that Wiley was _right there._ It was too late to correct that, too late to draw his gun to return fire. Too late to think on how he was about to disobey the one rule he and Trish had.

He heard the gun go off, saw it jump in Wiley's hand, felt the very beginnings of a searing pressure in the center of his chest.

And then he saw _nothing._ His vision blacked out, and he felt as if he had been rammed into by a car. He swore he heard things-muffled screams of alarm and more guns going off-but everything was just so dark and _disorienting,_ and he felt like he was _sinking_ , and any noise was drowned out by this odd surging sound, like a heartbeat heard from the bottom of a well.

And then he was waking up, sprawled out on the pavement with one hell of an ache in his chest, but a distinct lack of blood on his skin or a bullet through his heart. Marcus was nearby, too, collapsed in a untidy pile on the street, but looking no worse for wear than Murtaugh felt. That was a relief.

The screaming, though, was less of a relief. Murtaugh was on his feet in seconds, looking for the source, terrified that he was about to find his partner shot full of holes and dying in the dirt like a dog. Even if the man wanted to have his ticket punched for him, there was no way in hell that was happening on Murtaugh's watch.

Riggs wasn't the one screaming.

It was Wiley, his clothes torn, every inch of exposed flesh a bloody mess, his face a twisted mass of unadulterated terror as he cowered and struggled to drag himself away from Riggs, who loomed over the man like a gargoyle perched on the ledge of a cathedral.

For a moment, every part of Murtaugh was frozen, right down to the words in his throat. Riggs, from what Murtaugh could tell from staring at his turned back, looked as he always did. The air around him, though, was _different,_ even more than it usually was. It was almost nauseating, screaming danger and warning anybody away. Murtaugh had made jokes about the man being a wild thing before, but those had just been _jokes._ Now, though...

If anybody had walked up to Murtaugh and told him right then that Riggs was a feral animal, he would have absolutely believed them.

Murtaugh wasn't entirely sure how or when he managed to call out to his partner, but he must have, because Riggs was suddenly spinning around towards him, not at all worried about Wiley attacking him from behind. The face that greeted him wasn't even close to the one Murtaugh was familiar with.

On some base level, it still looked like Riggs. But his mouth was stretched too wide, and was filled with too many teeth that were sharp and jagged like a shark's. His flesh was too pale and grey, with veins like the lines on a road map. And his _eyes_...they were completely white and glowing from within, cracks of that light spreading outwards from his eye sockets to frame his eyebrows and ride along his cheekbones.

That face was only there for a blink of an eye, gone so quickly that Murtaugh had to think twice on whether he had actually seen it, or if maybe the stress of the job was really getting to him.

Riggs, though, had that same look on his face that Murtaugh's kids got whenever they were caught sneaking back into the house well after curfew.

And then he was at Murtaugh's side, grinning and patting his shoulder, and babbling at one hundred miles a minute as he checked on Marcus's condition.

Murtaugh barely managed a comprehensible conversation with the man while they waited on backup and CSIs to come clear the scene. There was no way that Murtaugh's silence escaped Riggs's attention, but he seemed content with letting the man keep to himself, bumming a ride back to the precinct from a uniformed officer when Murtaugh's back was turned. He should have been angry that his partner took off without telling him after such a high-adrenaline, dangerous situation, but Murtaugh found himself thanking every deity he knew the name of that he wouldn't have to ride back with Riggs.

He felt guilty about feeling that way later, when he was calmed down enough to convince himself that his silence towards his partner was the result of shaken nerves from nearly getting shot, and not because of the instinctual, primal fear that clawed at his throat whenever he thought of that sharp-toothed, glowing-eyed face.

The next day, he moved gingerly while getting ready for work. There was a bruise forming in the center of his chest, the same kind that he got once when he caught a bullet in the vest during a shootout. He couldn't help but remember that hot, burning pressure against his chest when Wiley pulled the trigger the night before, right before Murtaugh had been damn near convinced he had been shot dead. The feeling then had been similar to that shootout; the only difference was, he hadn't been wearing a vest the night before.

Two weeks later, Riggs and Murtaugh were rushing from the precinct to get to the latest crime scene. Riggs had forgotten his jacket again, that army-green thing with the bullet hole in the shoulder. Murtaugh was beginning to think Riggs only owned five articles of clothing.

Like the nice, considerate partner that Murtaugh was, he snatched up the jacket and made to follow Riggs, who had already gotten bored with waiting for Murtaugh, and had disappeared into the stairwell. That man could somehow outpace an elevator, no matter how many floors he had between him and his destination, or whether he was going up or down.

Something tumbled from one of the pockets and hit the ground, the light tinkling of a small, metal thing catching Murtaugh's attention. He looked down to where the object had rolled to a stop near his foot.

It was a bullet. _Just_ the bullet, no casing to speak of. And judging from the mushroomed metal on one end, the bullet had already been fired and met its match against something particularly solid.

Murtaugh told himself that it was just a coincidence, because his partner couldn't catch bullets, and he wasn't bullet proof. Riggs was a strange man whose obsession with firearms was borderline diagnosable, so it stood to reason that he would have some weird things in his pockets, like random bullets that had already been fired. It was just a coincidence. There was no need to send the bullet off to try and connect it to Wiley's gun, because there _was_ no connection. It was a coincidence.

A few days later, the test results from the crime lab were sitting on Murtaugh's desk.

The bullet was a perfect match.

* * *

Riggs didn't talk about himself much.

He didn't talk about himself _at all_ , really. It would probably be easier for Murtaugh to pin the man down and rip his teeth from his skull than to pull any sort of personal fact from him. In all honesty, the only reason Murtaugh knew _anything_ about the man was because others had told him the information, or because Riggs had been trying to embarrass his partner.

The man was tight-lipped, so it was no surprise that he didn't verbally acknowledge his oddities. There were no slip-ups, no subtle comments injected into a conversation so that Riggs could later claim that they were sharing information and bonding. After weeks of working together, Murtaugh was becoming convinced that there was never going to be an instance where Riggs would give any hints towards what was up with him.

Until they worked the case with the rampaging ex-SEAL, Chad Jackson.

/

Murtaugh had the worst luck.

Two crazy ex-SEALs. _Two_. What had he done to piss off God so much that He would deem this necessary?

Creeping through an abandoned supermarket to try and sneak up on a trained killer and watch his insane partner's back did not feel like a good way to start what was surely going to be an incredibly long work day.

Up ahead where Murtaugh's aisle opened up into the dairy section, he could hear the quiet echoes of conversation. The voices weren't that loud, so it was hard to make anything out at his distance, but it sounded like Riggs had made contact with their target, and was making some sort of introduction. As Murtaugh drew closer and the words became clearer, it certainly seemed like that was what was going on, but he couldn't make heads nor tails of whatever crap was spewing from Riggs's mouth.

"So...all that milk, but I know you ain't no brownie."

From Murtaugh's cover behind an end cap stocked with bags of chips-horrible cover, really, if things went the usual route of ending in a shootout-he could see Jackson's bemused expression, like he wasn't sure if he should be laughing or growling.

"How do you figure?"

Riggs scratched the back of his head and shrugged; the picture of nonchalance. "Well, they don't like straying too far from the comforts of home, and it doesn't get much farther than the Sandbox. Plus they make awful swimmers for things that like to hang out near waterfalls."

Jackson snorted in clear agreement. Then, "Harbinger or Wrangler?"

"C'mon now. Do I look like I would have the patience to be a Wrangler?" Riggs asked with a grin that stretched just a bit too wide to be natural. An instinctual shiver rolled down Murtaugh's back.

Jackson chuckled, the noise bouncing around the empty supermarket and reverberating back, making it sound like dozens of people were hidden in the shadows and laughing at something Murtaugh had no hope of understanding. "You know, I'm usually really good at telling what the others are, but I can't seem to figure _you_ out."

"What can I say? Being mysterious is part of my charm."

After that, things deteriorated at a truly impressive speed. Jackson noticed Cruz trying to sneak up behind him and bolted. Riggs made after him, snarling at Cruz as he passed, while Murtaugh ran out the front door and circled the building to try and cut him off.

But Jackson didn't come crashing out the back door like Murtaugh had figured he would. No, the man sailed off of the _roof_ , hurtling through open air as if the wind itself carried him, depositing him on top of a semi-truck trailer. One more hop, and the man was gone, vanishing behind the interwoven branches of a hedge.

Murtaugh was just surprised that Riggs hadn't leapt after him.

/

The case was over.

Jackson was caught and in the hospital, his mission completed.

Murtaugh's mission, however, was nowhere near that point. Hell, it had hardly even started, though not for lack of trying.

His target was on the roof, legs dangling over the ledge as if he didn't have a care in the world, a mop bucket filled with ice and Coors parked behind him.

Murtaugh had no idea what he wanted to do, nor what he wanted to say. So he went with his gut.

"You can talk to me, you know." Not bad. "About anything. Whenever." Riggs didn't even glance over his shoulder as he chuckled into his latest can of beer. "Why won't you talk to me, man?" Because partners were supposed to _do that._ They were supposed to know everything about each other, share secrets that their spouses, parents, or kids didn't even know. They were supposed to be friends, confidants, _family_ in a way that blood relatives couldn't comprehend.

They had been working together for weeks, but Riggs felt like a stranger.

Murtaugh still didn't know how old he was.

"I'm unbelievably complicated, Rog." Wasn't _that_ an understatement. A memory of Riggs's face, cracked and glowing and with jagged teeth, sprang into Murtaugh's mind, just as it commonly did whenever he was reminded of his partner's strangeness. It still surprised him, bringing with it a discomfort that Murtaugh could never shake while in Riggs's presence. "No need to drag you into that."

Too late. "I've already been dragged into it."

Riggs drained the rest of his can, and crushed it in his grip. He replaced it with a fresh one, but he didn't open this one; he just snapped the tab against the top, the steady _click click click_ like a clock ticking at the other end of a wide room. "Not completely, I haven't."

Murtaugh raised an eyebrow. "That's a remarkable amount of restraint for you." He wasn't sure if he meant it as a joke or not. "Why haven't you?"

The can cracked open, and Riggs drained half of it in one gulp. "You have a good family, Rog."

Murtaugh tilted his head forward and his stance widened, his shoulders becoming set. "Are you saying you're a danger to my family?" he asked. He didn't think Riggs would outright threatened his family, but as he had to keep reminding himself, he didn't actually know much about the man.

Riggs finally turned, twisting at the waist just enough to look at Murtaugh over his wrinkled collar, his eyes wide. That expression alone had Murtaugh dropping his battle-ready posture.

"Me? No. Not to you. Not to _them_." Riggs looked pained, as if the very thought of causing harm to Murtaugh's family was like a knife twisting in his gut. He turned away quickly, hiding the look behind his shoulders and his beer. "But, you know, the more you poke around a river, the more likely you are to find a snake. It's best to keep to yourself on the riverbank, because those things in the mud might just be a couple of branches, but eventually you're gonna find yourself tripping over a water moccasin."

That was a warning. There was no way that was anything _but_ a warning. Murtaugh just wished he knew what Riggs's warning was supposed to be steering him away from.

"You're a strange guy, Riggs," he finally said.

Riggs threw him a grin over his shoulder. "You know, I've been told that a lot recently. I don't see it."

Murtaugh accepted Riggs's offer to sit next to him with a chuckle; a chuckle that he swallowed when he was faced with the sheer drop over the ledge of the roof. He ignored his instinct to get away from the deadly drop, however, because for the first time ever, Riggs mentioned his late wife without having to have the comment dragged out of him. That conversation was brief and not too terribly informative, but it was _something._ It was _progress._ And the fond smile curling Riggs's lips as he talked was the most natural, human thing Murtaugh had ever seen on the man's face.

 _'A branch or a snake, huh?'_

Murtaugh wondered which one he was sitting next to.

* * *

Riggs did a lot of weird things.

He had an odd assortment of cravings and ate odd things, if he ate at all. Honestly, the only times Murtaugh saw the man eat, was when Riggs _knew_ he was expected to eat, or if he thought it would throw somebody off their game. His little comment made weeks ago-"I ate, like, a week ago."-made much more sense.

But that wasn't the weirdest thing that he did. Not by a long shot. The first prize still went to what Murtaugh had started to simply call, "The Face Thing".

The runner-up went to Riggs's ability to cause absolute destruction wherever he went. The man had turned it into an art form.

For the longest while, Murtaugh figured that all of the destruction was a sort of secondary thing; a byproduct of Riggs just being _Riggs._ Like when fugitives were hit by buses or propane trucks were exploded because of a misplaced motorcycle. Those things were accidents. Riggs hadn't _meant_ for those things to happen. The biggest kind of damage Riggs could directly cause was through the use of his gun.

Which was still a considerable amount of damage and entirely horrifying, but whatever.

Even when Riggs practically shredded Wiley, that was still something that Murtaugh could kind of understand, because it was still on a human scale; an easy-enough-to-achieve level. Hell, if Murtaugh was particularly committed and hadn't cut his nails in a couple of weeks, he could have probably achieved the same result.

An entire SUV, however, was another story entirely.

/

Murtaugh used to love reading the Miranda Rights to criminals.

There was always that point when, no matter how cocky they were, the bad guys would get this _look_ in their eye, a sort of terrified defeat as they realized that they were _caught._ That _shit was about to get real,_ and their lives as they knew them were probably over. The truly heinous and guilty ones would put on a brave face, toss out confident rejoinders to any questions posed, but no matter what they said or what tone they used, one look in their eye and Murtaugh would _know._ There was no bravery, there was no confidence, because the kinds of criminals he hunted were _cowards._

Ever since meeting Riggs, though, that joy was stolen from him, because he usually had to yell out the lines of the Miranda while ducking from gunfire or running from explosions, or just generally fearing for his partner's safety.

He counted himself lucky to only be doing that last thing, although he didn't like that _only_ worrying about Riggs's life was paired up with "luck" in his mind.

Riggs had shot off the moment he was able, vanishing into the throngs of people in the large house in search of Rachel. He had left Murtaugh _again,_ but Murtaugh was okay with it this time, because Rachel had been a friend; one of his last ties to Miranda and his old life. That, and Murtaugh's newest arrest was only one half of their criminal target; Julian was down for the count, but Ashworth was still out there, which meant Rachel was probably still in danger.

Murtaugh waited impatiently for backup to arrive, practically sitting on Julian until a couple of uniformed officers showed up to take him off of his hands. One of those officers was kind enough to point Murtaugh in the right direction when he said he had to find his partner. That direction just so happened to be four blocks away.

Murtaugh froze once he got to the scene.

Ashworth's car was a _wreck._ The smashed, burning shell barely resembled a car at all.

The automatic nausea that had risen in Murtaugh's throat upon seeing the car-if it looked like that, then how did Rachel and Riggs look?-abated the moment he saw his partner alive and well, a dark glower on his face as he watched the SUV blaze, the subject of his ire locked up tight inside the mangled mass of flame and metal. Once the attending firefighters turned their hose on the car, Riggs focused his attention on the ambulance on-scene, where Rachel sat on the back ledge with an orange blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a butterfly bandage holding a slice in her forehead closed.

Riggs, in contrast, looked the same as he always did; barely a hair out of place.

He approached them from the side, frowning when Rachel kept shooting Riggs odd looks, like a child that had just witnessed two dogs snarling at one another through a chain link fence. She spoke, her voice hushed.

"I-I didn't believe her, when she said that..." She shook her head. "Miranda said that you were-"

Riggs cut her off by clearing his throat. When her eyes snapped up to meet his, he winked at her with a small smile.

Murtaugh cursed his luck, but didn't miss a step. "What the hell happened here?" he demanded.

Riggs turned to him with a grin. "Hey, Rog! Nothing much. Ashworth tried to run Rachel down. I took care of it."

Murtaugh pointed over his shoulder at the charred SUV. "That's _'Nothing much'?"_ he asked. "Avery is going to kill you."

"Hey, that's not damage to the city! That can't be added to my tab!" Riggs paused, his mouth twitching downwards into a frown. "It _can't,_ right?"

Murtaugh rolled his eyes, because leave it to Riggs to totally miss the point; the one thing the man was actually capable of missing.

"Seriously, Riggs. What happened?" Murtaugh asked. "Are you two all right?" He immediately kicked himself, because just like that, Riggs shut down. He should have remembered that _you don't ask if Riggs is all right_ , because the answer is generally no.

As expected, Riggs averted his eyes, shuffled his feet, and used the excuse of brushing ash out of his hair to duck his head. "Yeah, Rog, we're good. Listen, Rachel was really shook up, so I'm going to take her home so as she can get cleaned up." He offered a hand to the young woman as he spoke, who accepted it with just the briefest moment of hesitance.

"We still need to take her statement!" Murtaugh called after his partner. Unsurprisingly, Riggs kept walking, waving a dismissive hand over his head.

"I'll take care of that at her place. Buh-bye!"

And then he was gone, his lips barely moving as he whispered to Rachel in a constant stream until they disappeared around a line of police cruisers.

It took Murtaugh a moment to realize that Riggs had left him with the difficult, _annoying_ part of wrapping up a crime scene. _Again._

Forty-five minutes later, the firefighters on scene had finally wrangled the blaze consuming the SUV into something manageable. It was the last bit of the scene that hadn't already been thoroughly photographed and documented.

Murtaugh trailed after the crime scene photographer as she snapped mid-range photos of the SUV, his intention to get a quick look at Ashworth's corpse, because even though he _knew_ that the man was dead, he still felt compelled to _check._

He got as far as the front of the SUV before pausing. The thing had clearly flipped and rolled at least twice before _exploding_ , so there was bound to be a considerable amount of damage, but the car looked like it had slammed into a pole somewhere between Julian's house and the scene. It hadn't, though, because otherwise it would still be wrapped around that pole, like a tree snake around a branch. The front end wasn't just crushed inwards, but also _down_ , as if it had been curb-stomped by the Incredible Hulk. And stretching from the hood and around over the driver's door were four gashes, like massive claw marks, in the blackened metal.

Murtaugh hovered his hand over the tears, spreading his fingers out as far as they would go. They didn't even come close to spanning the gaps between all four gashes.

He spotted Bailey chatting with a few uniformed officers, and waved her over.

"You ever seen anything like this?" he asked.

Bailey shrugged. "I've seen a lot of car accidents," she said in lieu of an actual answer.

"So it could have been caused by the SUV rolling?"

"Maybe?" Bailey leaned forward to take a closer look, backing off again when the photographer moved forward to take a few close-ups. "I don't know, Murtaugh. Every crash is different, you know that. Anything could have caused those."

Yeah. _Anything._

Murtaugh figured he had a pretty good idea.

* * *

Physical damage rolled off of Riggs like water off a duck's back, which was incredibly fortuitous for the man, because he threw himself headfirst into danger _a lot._

He hadn't noticed it at first because shooting Riggs had, for a lack of a better word, _worked_. It had hurt him as it ought to, so Murtaugh had thought nothing of it.

It actually took him a while to notice Riggs's odd durability. It wasn't until Riggs tried to give himself a nasty case of road rash and get himself drowned that Murtaugh realized that Riggs was rarely ever hurt by _anything_ that should have killed or at least mildly maimed a normal man.

At that point, Murtaugh had no idea if Riggs's disregard for his own safety actually stemmed from his desire to die-like he had originally assumed-or if it was because Riggs knew that so little could hurt him.

Either way, durable or not, Riggs seemed determined to give Murtaugh another heart attack.

/

Was his quick breathing because of the physical strain of chasing a truck down on foot, or because he was pretty sure he was having a panic attack?

Murtaugh had no idea. It was probably a combination of the two.

The last he had seen of Riggs had been when the man had sprinted towards the truck as it peeled out onto the street. He thought for sure that Riggs would be left in the dust, because nobody was so stupid as to grab onto the chains dangling at the back of a fleeing truck and willingly get dragged along behind it.

Scratch that.

Nobody aside from his insane partner.

Murtaugh had been a cop for a long time. He had seen car crashes, where the passengers or drivers had been ejected and flung across dozens of feet of road. And he had once investigated a hate crime where the poor victim had been tied up behind a sedan and pulled around on a gravel road until simple things like muscle and tendons couldn't hold the limbs together any longer. In all of those cases, he became incredibly familiar with what happened when a fleshy body was rubbed against rough asphalt.

He was _so sure_ that his partner was about to get his death wish granted; that he was going to catch up and find a red, oozing, gooey mess for him to report to Avery and whatever next of kin Riggs might have had. Even then, as the nightmarish images plagued his mind, he held out hope that Riggs's SEAL training would have given him enough strength to haul himself into the bed of the truck, and that all that would be needed was an emergency trip to the hospital for stitches and splints.

When he finally caught up to his partner, he didn't need any of those things, _nor_ a couple dozen biohazard bags to collect the bits and pieces of what had once been Martin Riggs.

Because Riggs was _whole and healthy_. His hair was windswept, his clothes ruffled and a bit frayed at the knees and abdomen, but beyond that, he was fine. He was more out of breath than anything, although that was probably because he had somehow gotten into a shouting match with a DEA agent during the five minutes that Murtaugh had lost sight of him.

Murtaugh, to his credit, just went with it.

/

He had looked everywhere.

 _Everywhere._

He had checked their desks, the Airstream, _his own house,_ and had even texted Trish, Baliey, Cruz, Avery, and their new friend, Palmer. He had even checked lockup, just in case he had somehow ended up there for disorderly conduct or whatever.

Nobody knew where Riggs was.

And that worried Murtaugh, even though he knew he should suspend that until he knew for sure that Riggs was in trouble.

But he couldn't help it, because not even three hours ago, Riggs was getting dunked head-first into a barrel of disgusting water, with who knew what floating around in it. Riggs had basically been _waterboarded_ , and he had just _vanished._ Murtaugh wasn't an expert, but he knew that people were usually encouraged to seek medical treatment after being _drowned_.

He had read articles about it when R.J. had first started becoming interested in swimming, paranoid that he would need to use the information to save his son at one point or another. That information had never been needed-because, like his wife had insisted, their boy was _smart_ and would figure out swimming just fine-but it had still stuck with him.

Horror stories of brain damage and delayed reactions. People seeming fine after coughing up water, only to drown hours later because of fluid buildup in the lungs; "dry drowning", it was called. Not to mention the psychological toll that _literal torture_ could have, and the Lord knew that Riggs didn't need any more of that kind of damage.

The more Murtaugh thought on that, the more he was convinced that Riggs had to get to the hospital _right the hell now_ , no matter the man's probably-with-good-reason aversion to the centers of medicine and healing.

His last ditch effort was just upstairs, which he made his way to with haste. Doctor Cahill had a weird knack for finding the man; if anybody knew where Riggs was, it would be her.

As it turned out, Murtaugh was _right_. Cahill _did_ know where Riggs was, but only because he was stretched out on her couch while the doctor herself sat at her desk, scribbling away at whatever papers held her attention.

Murtaugh paused at the door, fingers hovering near the handle, because maybe he was about to interrupt something? Maybe they were taking a break from an impromptu session, with Riggs gathering his thoughts or composure or whatever while Cahill gave him the space to do so. Hell, as long as Cahill was there to keep an eye on him-and knew about the waterboarding, which she probably did-Murtaugh could probably brush off his worry of Riggs dry-drowning in a place where nobody could help him.

Murtaugh was just about to leave them to whatever when he noticed that Riggs definitely wasn't gathering his thoughts in the middle of a therapy session, because the man was _knocked out cold._ Asleep, by the looks of it, and not drowning, which was a serious plus. Riggs finally getting some rest was good. Even Murtaugh had begun to notice how little the man slept, and how _tired_ he looked all the time. It was worrisome, to say the least.

Another thing that was worrisome?

Riggs's form had started to fall apart at the edges again, sheering apart and glitching, just as it had that day when he was stuck with the cattle prod.

 _Right in front of Cahill._

Before he fully registered what he was doing, Murtaugh had already ripped open the door and stepped into the office.

He wasn't sure what his plan was. Try to cover for Riggs so nobody else saw the inexplicable? Ask Cahill if she saw it too, just so he knew once and for all that he wasn't crazy?

Murtaugh didn't get to make a decision. Riggs's mumbling made him freeze and take a better stock of the situation.

A portion of Riggs's unstable form was caused by the man's own writhing on the couch, as if someone was stabbing into him with a red-hot fire poker, or something equally as agonizing. The parts of his face that weren't lost to the glitching dissolution of his body were twisted up in a grimace, baring teeth that, while not as sharp as the teeth that snapped at Murtaugh in his nightmares, were still too jagged to be entirely human.

Riggs suddenly jerked and buried his face into the forearm that had been pillowing his head, grinding his eyes and forehead into his sleeve. A keening, soulful sound clawed its way out of the man's throat, wrenching at Murtaugh's gut and squeezing his heart.

Because somewhere in the near-sob, Murtaugh was sure that he heard words, half-slurred by sleep and mumbled through a dream.

 _"Miranda,"_ and _"I want to,"_ and _"I'm trying,"_ and _"I can't."_

Cahill had gotten up. Murtaugh only noticed when the quiet clapping of a blanket basket's wicker lid shook him from whatever paralysis he had found himself wrapped up in. In her arms was a quilt that looked warm and hand-stitched, and on her face was a small, sad smile.

She crossed the room like a ghost, completely silent until she was snapping the quilt open and up, letting the air gently carry it over Riggs's twitching and collapsing form. It dipped in places that it shouldn't have, like there was none of Riggs left there to hold it up.

Cahill looked unconcerned by all of this as she placed a gentle hand on Riggs's shoulder, her grip firm, even when that shoulder seemed to be trying to melt right out of her grasp. She rubbed small, soothing circles along what remained of his upper arm; a grounding contact.

And just like that, Riggs was silent and still, his breath evening out, and his form snapping back together. Cahill stopped rubbing his shoulder, but her hand remained.

Cahill turned a soft smile on Murtaugh, the sadness mostly gone, but still lingering deep in the slope of her eyebrows and the curve of her mouth.

Without a word, she gave him a wink, and raised a finger to her lips.

Murtaugh had a feeling that her request for silence went beyond Riggs's sleeping.

For a reason that he never understood, Murtaugh didn't ask.

* * *

A cop's greatest pride was their danger sense, and Murtaugh was no different. At times, this instinct was probably the leading factor in his continued survival. Los Angeles, like any city, could be deadly to police officers that were foolish enough to not listen to their gut.

Just by being Riggs's partner, Murtaugh was ignoring that instinct.

Still, he was beginning to wonder if he should continue to turn a blind eye to the things that Riggs did. The Face Thing and Wiley getting torn up was what started the doubt, and the shredding of the SUV doubled it. If Riggs could do that to a car within _seconds_ , who was to say what he would do if he suddenly snapped and hit someone that didn't deserve it? Who was to say that his family wasn't in danger?

Murtaugh wished that there was someone he could talk to about it. He balked at the idea of going to Cahill-even though she seemed to know more about things than she let on-because that felt like some sort of breach of trust. He wasn't going to do that until he _knew_ that Riggs was a threat.

Rachel moved away basically overnight after the Ashworth case, so she was out, too. He made all of two attempts to contact her before he decided that she wasn't going to be returning his calls.

That left him with _no one._

So he was left to stew in his instinctual distrust and worry.

Until an eight-year-old boy, Ethan McFadden, gave him a wake-up call, and his own youngest daughter drove the kid's point home.

/

There was no way the boy hadn't seen anything.

There was just _no way._

Murtaugh had _seen_ Riggs's beach, had seen the carnage. It was like a tornado had swept through, digging deep furrows in the sand, and tossing gun-totting jackasses left and right. Most of them had limbs bent the wrong way and bones protruding through flesh. Others looked like Wiley had, with slashes in their clothing and skin, like they had gotten up close and personal with a feral cat.

And standing in the middle of it all was Riggs, Ethan wrapped up protectively in his arms.

All that _crap_ around him, Murtaugh knew there was no way that Ethan _hadn't_ seen Riggs do something weird. But the kid still clung to Riggs like he was a lifeline, refusing to let go all the way to the hospital to see his mother. If he had seen Riggs do whatever it was that he could do, or if Riggs had done the Face Thing, why wasn't the kid running for the hills? On bad days, Murtaugh still wanted to do that himself.

Riggs had said that he had given Ethan instructions to keep his eyes shut, and had locked him up in his Airstream while the real action went down. So maybe Murtaugh was wrong, and the kid _hadn't_ seen anything.

Except _yes, he totally freaking did,_ because otherwise Ethan would have had no reason to pull Murtaugh aside at the hospital while his mother was talking to Cahill. He would have had no reason to ask in a hushed whisper, "You know that Riggs is... _different,_ right?"

So the kid _did_ know.

Instead of verbally answering, Murtaugh just nodded.

Ethan's unsure posture relaxed a bit, the fear that he might be making a mistake melting away.

"Oh. Cool. Do...do you know what he is?"

"Son, I've got no idea."

Ethan nodded, as if he had been prepared for that answer. He was disappointed, Murtaugh could tell that much. He had been hoping for a better answer than that; a more informative one.

Yeah, well, so had Murtaugh.

Ethan peered at him, tilting his head to the side as he narrowed his eyes, studying Murtaugh's face. Then, he said, "There's no reason to be afraid of him, you know. Riggs is a good guy."

Murtaugh snorted. "I'm not afraid of my partner."

Ethan shook his head. "I'm good at telling when adults lie to me," he said. "And even if I wasn't, I've seen the way you look at him when you think he can't see you or isn't paying attention. It's really obvious. And if I can tell, then Riggs can, too." Ethan paused. "Maybe that's why he hasn't told you what he is."

Murtaugh didn't know what he hated more: That an eight-year-old had thought of that before he had, or that somewhere in the back of his mind, his instincts were still whispering for him to _run_ and _get away_ and _hide._

"You're pretty confident that you've got Riggs figured out," Murtaugh said.

"He's good, I can feel it. If he wasn't, I wouldn't have felt safe with him, even when that bad guy was attacking us with all of those guns."

Right. All of the bad guys, and all of the _guns_. "I still think he's dangerous." And completely, absolutely, certifiably _batshit insane._

Ethan grinned, his eyes and smile as bright as the sun. "Yeah, but only for people that deserve it."

Murtaugh really wished he could share the kid's confidence.

/

The day had started out pretty awful, and had just kept getting worse.

It had all started when Riggs had dangled Eddie Flores off a roof as he bared too-sharp teeth and made a sound deep in his throat that was nowhere even close to human. To be fair, Eddie deserved it. Poking fun at a man's dead wife just wasn't cool.

It had gone downhill from there.

Riggs had been high-strung for the rest of the day. If he had been on a hair trigger before, Murtaugh had no idea what he was on now, but it was horrible. His form always seemed to get unstable if Murtaugh looked at him out of the corner of his eye, but after their run-in with Eddie, Riggs went fuzzy around the edges a lot more often, and not just when he was hanging out in Murtaugh's peripherals. With Avery around more in an attempt to avoid the in-laws, Murtaugh spent the entire case paranoid that Avery would notice something he shouldn't. Murtaugh didn't have the energy to deal with something like that yet.

And then Eddie's asshole uncle had to go and have Murtaugh's family taken hostage, which he felt was totally uncalled for. He felt that he handled that well, though. Crisis averted. Kind of.

Riggs had called him. He had asked after his family's well-being, and reported that Eddie was dead and gone. Murtaugh had asked if he was happy.

 _"He didn't kill Miranda,"_ Riggs had said, his voice coming through flat over the cell connection.

"Do _you_ believe that?"

 _"He's dead, Rog, and his uncle left. Haven't got anybody to ask now."_ A beat. _"Glad your family's safe. Enjoy your Christmas."_

Riggs had hung up before Murtaugh could respond, leaving the older man staring at the blank screen of his phone. All he could see reflected in the glass was Riggs earlier that day, when he had shown up at the Airstream and pulled the door open without a warning. He had been greeted with a gun swinging around to meet him, held just a bit too high and close to the body to be a natural reaction's stance.

Murtaugh didn't need to be a detective to know where the muzzle of that revolver had been pointing before he had walked in.

"I'm worried about him," he had explained when Trish asked how Riggs was doing. "I'm _more_ worried about him." Because he was kind of always worried about the man for one reason or another.

Trish had just smiled and pat his arm, and before Murtaugh knew it, he was leading his family up into the Airstream, internally guffawing at the look of bewilderment on Riggs's face as five extra people crammed into the small space.

 _Too small_ of a space, they all decided, and not a very hospitable one after Murtaugh burnt out the power, so they had all spilled out onto the beach to build a fire and marvel at the stars.

So the day had started shitty, but was ending on a better note. Murtaugh was thankful for that.

The air was pleasant, warm, and light, kind of like a spring breeze. Even sitting as close to the fire as Murtaugh was, it wasn't stifling or burning the flesh along his cheekbones and forehead.

He had noticed the atmosphere earlier, right around the time they successfully reheated dinner over the bonfire, which had caused a round of celebratory cheering.

Murtaugh had grown so accustomed to the odd chill that hung around Riggs that the absence of it felt even more unnatural. For a moment, he had thought that Riggs had snuck away, but one glance had found him right where he had been since being assigned "supervision" duty after his attempts at using lighter fluid to make the fire heat the food faster had almost resulted in the loss of both his and R.J.'s eyebrows.

He didn't connect the warmth to anything until halfway through dinner, when he noticed that every joke, every comment, every playful slap at his knee while Trish or the kids shrieked with laughter at a sarcastic quip, brought a smile to Riggs's face; a smile he could never quite smother or hide behind his mustache or bowl of stew. And with each smile, the gentle warmth around them swelled, chasing the chill away more and more.

Murtaugh found that he liked the warmth much better.

So wrapped up in analyzing the warmth was he, that Murtaugh didn't notice that Riggs had vanished outside the ring of light cast by the bonfire until his father instincts kicked in and told him that something was wrong. Trish didn't seem to notice, so he left her with Riana and R.J., who were busy searching for constellations with her.

Murtaugh moved away from the heat of the bonfire and into the chill of the darkness of night, a shiver running across his shoulders that even the odd warmth couldn't keep away.

Spending so long around the fire, it was nearly impossible to see anything in front of him. Off to his right he could hear the gentle lap of waves along the shore, but the ocean was like a void that swallowed the stars, a lone streak of pale moonlight just barely managing to carve a path across the water.

The slippery sands were difficult to navigate when he couldn't see where he was stepping, and it was only after he had rounded the Airstream and made his way to the looming shadows of the nearest sea cliff that Murtaugh remembered his phone, left behind by the bonfire, the flashlight app utterly useless to him now.

He was considering turning around to retrieve it when he heard the quiet mutterings of his partner closer towards the shoreline. One hand on the rough stone of a boulder, Murtaugh followed it around until the moon's light helped his eyes adjust and pick out Riggs's form as he shuffled back and forth across the sands.

Murtaugh narrowed his eyes. Something was in one of Riggs's arms, pinned by his elbow and hand to his side.

He waited until Riggs turned again and came a bit closer.

It was Harper.

His heart almost stopped in his chest. He couldn't help it; it was instinctual. No matter his opinion on the man as a person, Riggs was dangerous, especially when on his own, and he had just carried his youngest daughter off without anybody noticing. How had nobody noticed? And why the hell had Riggs taken her?

Murtaugh had just opened his mouth to call out to his partner, but Riggs beat him to it. He didn't speak to Murtaugh, though, rather just aloud, or maybe to the tiny baby balanced on his hip.

"No, that one's broken. Oh, look here." He bent down and popped back up again, twisting something in his fingers and holding it up for Harper to see. She took one look at it, and then went back to chewing on her fist. "Nah, you're right. Kinda plain, isn't it?" He tossed the thing over his shoulder, where it landed with a _thump_ in the darkness. "Something cooler. You'd like something more spiky, wouldn't you? Like a grenade going off! I like those ones, too."

Harper pointed at what looked to be a crab as it meandered by, dragging along with it a jagged shell that had to be the size of a softball.

"Someone's still using that one, darlin'. You wouldn't want to steal some poor guy's home, would you?" Riggs went back to sweeping the beach, his eyes locked on the sand at his feet. "If only we could ask the Nereids to find something good for us. They're, like, some of the only other ones that like me. Too bad they swim south for the winter. They'd love you, you know," he said, tapping Harper on the nose. She giggled and gave him a gummy smile. "Listen to that voice! Already a better singer than them! They'll be so jealous." He stooped and scooped up a tightly-spiraling wentletrap shell as long as his hand, and held it up for Harper's appraisal. Again, the shell held her interest for only a fraction of a second. "You're one tough customer. Don't worry, we'll find the best darn shell California's got to offer."

Riggs suddenly froze, his spine going rigid. The pleasant warmth was sucked out of the air, the familiar chill rushing back in to take its place as Riggs's head snapped around towards the sea.

Creeping out of the water were two long and sinewy _things_ that slithered across the sand like snakes. Riggs took a step away from them the moment they got within five feet of him, his grip on Harper becoming much tighter.

But the _things_ just kept coming, all ten feet of them, until a small body hauled itself up from the shallow waters, standing on short and spindly legs that looked much too thin to hold up the potbellied, frog-like creature that owned them. The _things_ -the creature's arms-raised off of the sand to corral Riggs in a space that was too small for comfort.

Murtaugh really wished he had brought his gun.

Riggs cleared his throat. "Evening," he said, tone flat. The creature blinked at him with its bulbous black eyes. "Gotta say, I'm surprised. I thought your type preferred bogs and the like, not oceans."

"Lakes crowded," the creature croaked, its voice like reeds rattling in the wind.

"With grindylows? That'd be terrifying."

"Child?" the thing asked, its arms drifting closer to Riggs. "Give?"

Riggs glanced at Harper, seemingly unconcerned with his predicament. "She's not up for _grabs-"_ he reached out and smacked away an arm that had come too close, "-and neither are the other kids around here. So scram. Go drown seaweed or something."

The creature's tiny body began to vibrate, the water around it rippling. "Give!" it snapped. "Mine!"

Riggs's eyes narrowed, and when he spoke, he did so with bared teeth, which had become jagged like a shark's in an instant. "This beach is _mine,_ actually, and so is the kid. So _fuck off."_

The creature hissed in displeasure. "Give!" it shrieked, its arms shooting inwards towards Harper.

The beginning of a sob built up in her throat.

Not one finger managed to touch her. Riggs ducked the first arm, and latched onto the second with his free hand. In one fluid movement, he ripped the creature towards him, the tiny body skipping across the sand until he pinned it beneath his boot. The darkness almost seemed to flex and constrict like a viper as Riggs snapped his teeth and snarled, the deep, threatening sound shaking the sand and making the creature tremble. Or maybe it wasn't the snarl, but Riggs's white, glowing eyes, and the cracks of light that split his face.

It was probably a combination of the two; it definitely was for Murtaugh.

"Y-you!" the creature stuttered. "You o-one-"

"Shut up, before I rip your lips off," Riggs growled; an order that the creature was eager to follow. "Listen good. This is _my_ territory. Any child on this beach? They are _mine._ Touch even a _hair_ on one of their heads, and you'll _wish_ I killed you tonight. Understand?"

The creature nodded rapidly. "Yes!" it said. "Yes!"

"Good. Now go paddle around the Atlantic." Riggs pulled his foot off of the creature, who took off like a bullet from a gun, scurrying back into the safety of the waves.

Another hiccuping sob shook Harper's small frame, and Riggs turned his attention to her. Between one blink and the next, his face was back to normal, and the light warmth returned, wrapping around the beach like a favorite blanket.

Riggs smiled, the expression gentle and fond.

"Don't worry, little one," he said softly, drawing a soothing hand across the top of her head, smoothing out her short hair. "Ain't no one gonna harm you so long as I've got something to say about it." He gave her a quick peck on the crown of her head, which earned him a gurgling laugh. "Now let's find us that shell I promised you. Remember, we're looking for one fit for a princess, so none of those lame, dull-colored ones. Did I mention I like the ones that look like grenades?" He paused after taking only two steps. "Oh, uh, and don't tell your dad that I swore, okay? Don't want to give Rog another heart attack. He might even think I'm a bad influence on you. Granted, I probably _am_ , but let's keep that a secret between us."

Five minutes later, they had found something like a crown conch shell, splattered with all shades of reds and oranges and pinks. Harper had latched onto it and hadn't let it go, running her fingers over the spikes while giggling. Riggs had beamed with pride, a grin splitting his face wide open, even when he had had to pull the shell away from Harper's mouth twice in half as many minutes.

"Ah ah, keep that out of your mouth, young lady! Sand is gross. Trust me."

When they made it back to the fire a few minutes later, Murtaugh was there waiting for them with a smile and an open seat beside him. Riggs handed Harper over to him without a word.

Because Riggs was _Riggs,_ the "without a word" part only lasted for a couple of seconds.

"What, no Amber Alert?" he quipped. "I'm shocked."

"I knew she was with you." That was technically the truth. It had just taken a bit of snooping to find that out, is all. "Hanging out with the fun uncle." He tapped the seashell still clutched in his daughter's tiny hands. "Hunting for seashells."

Riggs peered at him out of the corner of his eye, feigning nonchalance. "A man with major psychological issues walks off with your kid and you're cool with it? You're awfully trusting," he said with an odd tone, as if testing the waters.

Murtaugh met Riggs's nonchalance with his own unconcerned shrug. "You're crazier than a sack of cats, Riggs. That's a given. But there's also probably nobody safer for her to be around than you," he said, voice and gaze firm. He hoped that Riggs could pick up on the meaning of his words: _I trust you._ Maybe eventually, Riggs would trust him, too.

Riggs looked away, dropping his gaze to the baby bouncing on Murtaugh's knee. Noticing the attention, Harper smiled and held out the shell in offering. Riggs took it reverently, dipping his head as if accepting a knight's sword from the queen of a kingdom. He raised the end of the shell to his lips, took in a deep breath, and then imitated trumpet fanfare, crossing his eyes and puffing out his cheeks in an exaggerated show of exertion. Harper burst out into a frenzy of giggling laughter, that gurgling, giddy _yuk-yuk-yuk_ that only babies could make drawing unbidden chuckles from the two men.

Murtaugh turned a grin to his partner. "You know, you might actually _not_ be terrible?"

Riggs rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks, Roger. Merry freakin' Christmas to you, too."

* * *

A/N: Did you guys know it's, like, _impossible to format anything on this godforsaken website._ I posted this on AO3 a while ago and tried to just...copy it here, and it went straight to HTML or something.

Part one done, part two should be up sometime soon, hopefully.


	2. Chapter 2

Call him crazy, but Murtaugh had thought that his partnership with Riggs would change. After that Yuletide moment on the beach, he had assumed that they had reached some sort of turning point; that Riggs would finally open up. Maybe give Murtaugh some answers on what was going on, and what he was.

But _freaking nope,_ Riggs seemed determined to remain as closed off as ever. Scratch that. The odd, scruffy man seemed to be doing his damnedest to be even more elusive.

Murtaugh tried to drop hints, subtle references to the things he knew-or at least _thought_ he knew-about Riggs. When that failed, he assumed that Riggs just wasn't comfortable enough around him yet. He could understand that. So he amped up the invitations; dinner, lunch, beers, _anything._

Riggs dodged them all.

After even the laziest or strangest people in the neighborhood had finally gotten around to taking down their Christmas lights, Murtaugh was one uncomfortable smile and awkward invitation refusal away from just tossing in the towel. If Riggs didn't want to pursue a closer relationship, then _fine,_ neither did Murtaugh.

Maybe Riggs was some weird lizard creature that couldn't feel proper human emotions. Maybe that was why he didn't react the way normal people did, and didn't seem to want to be anything but acquaintances with _anybody._

Murtaugh knew that that was a feeble attempt at making himself feel better, but damn him if he didn't want to believe it.

And hell, he didn't want to be the _only one_ who cared about such an emotional wreck of a person, because then that would make him responsible for the man. "Riggs's centerboard", Avery had called him. He wasn't strong enough to provide the kind of support Riggs needed. When Riggs told him that he did nothing all weekend but sit in his trailer by himself, it was enough to give Murtaugh heart palpitations, because that meant that _he was it._ Riggs had _nobody but him._ If he wrote Riggs off like he wanted to, then the number of people keeping Riggs afloat would drop to zero. Riggs would sink, and he would drown, and he would be gone.

Not like the man wasn't already drowning—drowning in booze, drowning in sorrow, drowning in his _stupid insistence on telling Murtaugh nothing_ —but whatever.

Although, Riggs wasn't completely successful in telling Murtaugh nothing. Murtaugh still got little snippets now and again. Those snippets just came easier when Riggs was pumped full of sedatives. If he had known that a tranquilizer was all it would take for Riggs to start being honest, he would have tried that weeks ago.

Or maybe not.

/ / /

Riggs was _high as hell._

If they hadn't been in the middle of a car chase, Murtaugh would have found it hilarious.

He hadn't even noticed that anything was off about Riggs until he had to get out of the car to help him off the street. When Murtaugh had first seen Riggs bodyboarding on the roof of that blue sedan, he had just sighed and thought, _'Yeah, okay,'_ because Riggs seemed to end up in that same situation on a weekly basis.

But then Riggs had been thrown from the sedan, rolled across the street, and just...sat there. Murtaugh had parked and waited for him to get up and get in, but he _didn't._ He had had to drag his partner to the car and throw him in himself, and all the while, Riggs was laughing like an idiot.

Riggs's explanation that Owlsly had drugged him made a lot of sense, and provided Murtaugh with a shred of comfort. At least he knew his partner hadn't gotten some sort of brain damage when smacking his head into the pavement.

After Riggs realized that he kept repeating the same information over and over, he giggled. In Murtaugh's opinion, the sound was even more terrifying than Riggs's Face Thing.

"Well, did I tell you that I don't think these drugs are gonna kill me?" Riggs slurred from the back seat.

Murtaugh rolled his eyes, because Riggs had already told them that Owlsly had said that the drug's effects were temporary. When Murtaugh said as much, Riggs waved his hand in dismissal. The gesture went wide, and Riggs smacked himself in the face.

Riggs stared at the offending appendage as if he had never seen it before in his life, and said, "Maybe she thought that, but she coulda been wrong! Lotsa drugs can kill me! Xanax and Valium, and aspirin! Tiny bit, and..." He blew a raspberry. "Cuz, y'know, I'm a-"

Murtaugh took a corner at about twenty miles an hour above what even a car chase warranted, which pitched Riggs sideways into the car door and shut him right up. Murtaugh glanced at Cho, and his grip on the steering wheel tightened. "Because you're allergic?" Murtaugh asked, emphasizing the last word to try and get through Riggs's drug-addled mind and give the man a hint.

"Allergic to what?" Riggs twisted in the back seat, pulling his gun from his waistband. "Hey, get closer so I can shoot out their tires!"

Avoiding one problem only to dive straight into another; at least the drugs hadn't stripped that away from him.

Something else that _had_ been stripped away, apparently, was Riggs's ability to see and comprehend what glass was. He was like a bird, ramming into the glass repeatedly, a look of bafflement on his face when he bounced off of an invisible wall each time.

"S'not workin'," he muttered. "I'm not fittin' through the cracks." He tried again, just to be sure, pressing himself up against the window as if he would just phase right through it. For all Murtaugh knew, maybe Riggs could do that. Or maybe not, because after a moment, Riggs slumped back against the seat again. "Okay, Rog, you're gonna have to do it."

Cho looked a bit horrified by the idea, and even more horrified when Murtaugh directed him to take the wheel and leaned out his window without waiting for the other detective to comply. Murtaugh had probably looked like that once, back when his partnership with Riggs had still been in the beginning stages, and they didn't wreck a Crown Victoria every few weeks.

The next five minutes went by in a flash. Murtaugh blew out the blue sedan's tires, the car ended up flipping onto its roof, Cho and Murtaugh assured that the department's lockup would be a few Korean gang members richer by the end of the night, and backup had finally deigned to make their appearance.

"Anybody injured?" one of the paramedics asked, holding up his kit, as if his uniform or ambulance didn't lend him enough credibility.

"I'm thinking _yeah."_ Murtaugh looked around the dark street, scanning the faces of nosy bystanders in search of his partner and the woman that he had staggered off to catch. When he didn't see them, he frowned. "Yeah, give me a second." He pushed his way through the growing crowd, flashing his badge and giving demands for the looky-loos to disperse that would ultimately go ignored.

All worries that a dazed Riggs had stumbled out into the street were dashed when Murtaugh spotted him slouched on a bench as if he was waiting for one of the city buses that Murtaugh had feared had run him over. Peeking up over Riggs's shoulder was a head of dark hair that could only belong to his apparent quarry-turned-cuddle buddy. For a man that barely tolerated brief hugs from Trish and balked at anything even approaching emotional vulnerability, Riggs seemed to have no problem with Owlsly snuggling up into his side.

When he rounded the bench, Murtaugh saw why.

Owlsly's eyes were dead. Just like the rest of her. She was completely still, as still as a statue, her chest unmoving, her lips just barely parted and eyes half-lidded. Blood stained her forehead, but the cut that it came from wasn't leaking anymore because there was no heart pumping to force it out. She was dead and gone, curled up under Riggs's arm like a terrified child seeking comfort from a parent.

"What happened?" Murtaugh asked. Maybe the crash had hurt her more than her outward injuries let on.

"She wanted this," Riggs said, his steely tone beating the drug-induced slur into submission. "She wanted this." His form briefly fizzled and distorted, and Murtaugh struggled not to jump at the suddenness of it. "Took some pills before they even crashed."

Murtaugh moved closer, intending to take Owlsly's pulse-driven by the futile hope that maybe the corpse in front of him had a few sparks of life left, after all-but stopped short when he got a better look at his partner.

He had grown used to seeing Riggs's body sort of fall apart out of the corner of his eye, or occasionally do it when Riggs was pissed or startled by something.

What he _wasn't_ used to was seeing Riggs's skin literally crawl and ripple as if thousands of tiny bugs were scrabbling about beneath it.

Or like something was trying to force its way out.

"She wanted this," Riggs said again, quieter. Murtaugh knew what he really meant.

I _want this, too._

Murtaugh stood there silently for what felt like an eternity, but couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, his eyes trailing back to where the flashing lights of the ambulance and other police cruisers bathed the buildings around them in a red and blue glow. Eventually, someone would find their way over to them, which was probably the last thing that Riggs wanted- _needed_ -at the moment.

"A paramedic is on his way over." Murtaugh said abruptly. "He wants to make sure whatever drug you've got in your system is on its way out."

Riggs immediately straightened, and disgust crossed his face. "A _paramedic?"_ he hissed. "I don't need a _paramedic."_

The foggy, unfocused look still lingering in his eyes said differently. The way Riggs's skin was still shifting, however, did not.

"Sorry, man, but I already told them you were drugged with an unknown substance. It's standard procedure for you to get checked out."

"I ain't standard," Riggs growled. "Tell 'em I don't need 'em." Murtaugh snorted and shook his head. "Then look the other way while I make a break for it."

"I'm not going to cover up your rule-breaking, Riggs," Murtaugh said, right before wandering over to a newspaper that had been thrown in the gutter. He picked it up, snapped it open, and buried his nose in it. "Would you look at that? They built a McDonald's outside Vatican City! The Catholics are _pissed_. Oh, and the Clintons are going to attend the Inauguration? I wouldn't. And did you hear, Charles Manson is sick! He's been transfered to a hospital. Avery and I were talking about this the other day, you know. He thought it might have been a poorly-planned escape attempt. I said, "Captain, the man is eighty-two years old, and has a swastika tattooed on his forehead. Even if he escaped, he wouldn't get far." Am I right?"

Murtaugh peeked over the top of the newspaper, and slowed his babble to a halt. Riggs was gone. Owlsly's body was laid out on the bench, her eyes pulled closed as if in sleep.

Glancing up and down the street, Riggs was nowhere to be found. Hopefully he would stay gone until he was sobered up, and calm enough that he no longer looked in danger of literally falling to pieces, or his flesh boiling right off of his bones.

Murtaugh raised a hand in the air and bellowed, "I need paramedics over here! And bring a body bag!"

* * *

For a man that seemed to enjoy breaking physics and rationality on a whim, Riggs's weirdness was sometimes oddly forgettable.

When Murtaugh had still been suspicious of Riggs's intentions, he hadn't really _let_ himself forget that Riggs clearly had something up with him; at least, he didn't forget for long. After he accepted that Riggs probably wasn't out to drink his family's blood or eat their hearts or whatever, he was amazed to find that his lack of obsessing over what Riggs was led him to just forget that he might be anything other than human in the first place.

How he could forget those jagged teeth and glowing white eyes was anybody's guess. Him being able to just ignore Riggs's image distorting and sheering apart when he was in his peripheral vision could, in some circles, be considered a miracle. And yet, at some point when he had not been paying attention, his definition of normal had shifted.

His new baseline for judging anomalies was probably why he stopped noticing the odd shit that Riggs did. After all, when he knew his partner could somehow flip and shred an SUV, witnessing Riggs leaping off the top of a car going sixty and surviving with a short-lived limp wasn't that impressive. Him being able to snarl more convincingly than a literal tiger was a cool party trick. His habit of popping up out of nowhere and making Murtaugh spill his fresh mug of coffee all over the floor was just another day at the office.

The normality of Riggs's peculiarity become a sort of comfort for Murtaugh. While Riggs's emotional and mental state varied wildly from day to day, he could always rely on Riggs to be a weird son of a bitch. It was disarming, to the point that Murtaugh started to forget that, for all intents and purposes, he was playing with fire. He started to forget that he shared a car with a natural disaster given human form; a wild animal that remained on its leash only because it felt like it.

Murtaugh started to forget that, just because Riggs wasn't a threat to him or his family, that didn't mean that Riggs was suddenly tame.

Somewhere along the way, _follow the sounds of fistfights and gunfire_ had become Murtaugh's go-to way of finding his partner whenever he went missing.

/ / /

Murtaugh commonly cursed the fact that Riggs was so rowdy, but at least his tempestuous partner made it easy enough to find him whenever he tossed himself headlong into a situation that would leave a sane man hollering for backup.

To be fair, Riggs hadn't disappeared without so much as a word of warning _this_ time. Luke Barton had been trying to make his escape, and Riggs had just gone after him, like a hound on the trail of a wounded fox, a tooth-baring snarl on his face as he shot after the man, barking and baying for Barton to _get back here_ and _stop being a wimp._ Murtaugh had let him go, because they _had_ just busted through the wall just a few feet from their captive boss, and _somebody_ had to be the civilized one and make sure Avery was uninjured.

Of course, once Murtaugh knew that his old partner wasn't going to keel over dead, he was free to make sure his current partner wasn't about to do that, either, which is what led to Murtaugh thanking God that Riggs had been cursed-or blessed-with a lack of subtlety.

He would honestly be surprised if the entire neighborhood didn't wake up and call in a noise complaint because of what sounded like a full-on fight club unfolding in the back alley.

Or because of the car crashing through the front of a house, or the gunfire.

Come to think of it, there was a few different things that the neighbors were probably upset over.

Murtaugh took his time catching up to Riggs, because from the sound of it, Riggs had it handled. That, and it wasn't like Murtaugh was in a rush to save Barton from Riggs's wrath. The jackass had killed a _cop;_ a Texas Ranger, which Riggs seemed to take even more seriously. Any cop would have loved to get a minute or two of alone time with Barton. He had killed a _cop_. So what if Riggs gave him a shiner or two before handcuffing him?

Murtaugh paused when he heard a very solid and final _thump_ of two bodies hitting the ground, harsh breaths mingling in the otherwise silent night. The fight, it would seem, had come to an end, and just the fact that both sides were still breathing clued Murtaugh in to who had won.

That wasn't what made Murtaugh halt, though.

It was the low, reverberating chuckle.

 _"Remember how you said you and I aren't so different?"_ Riggs's voice drifted from around the corner. Murtaugh could have sworn that he heard other voices echoing those words, whispering them at an octave too high or too low to be Riggs, but still with that same familiar cadence and uniquely-his accent. _"You're wrong. Let me show you by how much."_

Murtaugh's heart leapt into his throat when he heard an awful tearing sound, followed by a horrified scream and a thunderous roar, like a train was barreling by just around the corner.

Just as abruptly as the sound came, it ended with the clattering crash of shattering stone. That spurred Murtaugh back into action, once his heart resettled in his chest, where it was supposed to be.

He wasn't sure what he was supposed to expect, but when he rounded the corner, the back alley was both in better and _worse_ shape than he had thought it would be. That shredding, and the _scream_...Murtaugh had jumped to the knee-jerk conclusion that Barton was going to be a mess of bloody pulp on the ground, with a sharp-toothed and glowing-eyed Riggs standing above him.

As it turned out, Murtaugh was kind of right. Riggs was indeed standing over Barton with a Face Thing-accentuated sneer, but Barton was in one piece, aside from a number of bloodied scrapes on his face and arms. Such a low number of injuries was astounding, considering that Barton was laid out in the rubble on the other side of a hole _straight through a cement block wall._

Murtaugh's arrival must have been louder than he had realized, because Riggs's head snapped around to face him-the only movement in his otherwise unnaturally frozen stance-the disquieting sneer still stretching his mouth twice as wide as any human's could possibly go. It wasn't a particularly threatening expression, but it still made Murtaugh's knees weak and his heart start up an erratic rhythm.

And _shit,_ how had Murtaugh ever thought that Riggs was _safe?_ That he was suddenly not a clear and obvious threat? How had he seen him interact with Harper once, and think that this animal was somehow tame? After all, a lioness could show tenderness to a cub, but that didn't mean it couldn't and wouldn't eviscerate a gazelle with ease.

Riggs tilted his head a fraction of an inch to the side and regarded Murtaugh with blank eyes. Other than that, he still wasn't moving. He didn't appear to be breathing at all; the telltale pulse visible in everyone's throat was still.

And then Riggs blinked, and the Face Thing was gone again, and his shuddering form solidified. Murtaugh hadn't even noticed the edges of his body jumping all over the place. What kind of shitty detective was he?

Riggs lips pulled into a grin that was well within normal human parameters, took two steps forward, and clapped Murtaugh on the shoulder with a bright and cheery, "All yours, big guy!" He strolled off without a backwards glance, calling out as he did so. "Hey, Captain! You dead? If we hit you with the car, Roger was _definitely_ the one driving."

Murtaugh stood next to the hole in the bricks, just staring through it at Barton's body. He was still breathing; only unconscious, as far as Murtaugh could tell. Riggs hadn't killed him. He had somehow _thrown him through a cement wall,_ but Riggs hadn't killed him.

Even with that thought in mind, it didn't stop Murtaugh's hands from shaking.

/ / /

Technically, Murtaugh wasn't spying.

If Avery and Riggs hadn't wanted their conversation being overheard, then they shouldn't have been having it in the break room. Anybody could have waltzed on by and accidentally eavesdropped. That 'anybody' just so happened to be Murtaugh as he passed by on the way to the restroom, and Murtaugh just so happened to stop and find a better, more subtle place to accidentally overhear some more.

There weren't any rules about loitering at the printer, so technically, Murtaugh wasn't spying. If anything, he was being a good Samaritan by making sure the printer wasn't jammed, and that the glass window of the photocopier was so nice and clean that one could read the amount of ink dots needed to print words like 'excuses', and 'denial', and 'nosy as shit'.

"He killed a Ranger, Avery. What did you want me to do?" Riggs demanded, making absolutely zero attempts to keep his voice at an acceptable level.

Avery, at least, seemed to be trying to be more discreet. "Maybe _not_ smash a reinforced cement wall?" he asked, tone dry. "That's going to cost the city a couple grand at least, not to mention an explanation I haven't come up with yet."

"I don't know how that hole got there."

"Riggs."

"Maybe a meteor. Or maybe Barton's inflated self-importance hit it."

"Riggs, I _heard_ you. Hell, the entire neighborhood heard you." Avery paused, just for a moment. "But your penchant for overkill isn't what we were talking about. Riggs, I have never demanded any answers from you, and so long as I can help it, I never will. But this cloak-and-dagger stuff with him has to stop. He already knows something is up. If you just sat him down and talked, then maybe you wouldn't be hiding in the break room."

Riggs made his uncomfortable _I'd rather be sunbathing on Mercury_ right now grunt, which usually meant he was about to make an abrupt exit; out the window, if necessary. "Talking ain't exactly a strong suit of mine. And I've already got Cahill nagging my ear off about it. I don't need you doing it, too."

"All I'm saying is that he wouldn't care, Riggs."

Riggs clicked his tongue. "Yes, he would."

The sound of chair legs scraping across the ground sent Murtaugh diving for cover behind the printer. He jammed himself between it and the corner it was shoved into, remembering too late to tuck his chin to his chest to avoid the fold-down table sticking out of the machine's side. Somehow he managed to keep from yelping, but he felt swearing was more in order anyway, because his head clipping the table had made one hell of a _bang._ He was as good as caught.

Except, no, he apparently wasn't, because Riggs just walked right on by, his attention focused on the pockets of his jacket as he fished for something; his flask, if Murtaugh were to hazard a guess.

Avery hadn't yet left the break room, so Murtaugh stayed where he was, paranoid that the police captain would walk out the exact moment that he tried to stand up. After ten knee-cramping minutes, he finally pulled himself out from his hiding place, but only because a young uniformed officer had noticed the senior detective folded up like a pretzel behind the department printer.

His feet seemed to move on their own; he wanted to go back to his desk, but they brought him into the break room instead. Avery was sat at one of the tables, tired eyes trained on his phone as he slowly typed out a text message.

Murtaugh's entire body must have decided to revolt, because before he even realized what he was doing, he had already pulled out a chair, sat down, and said with a no-nonsense tone, "You know what's up with Riggs."

It was a statement, not a question, but Avery was determined to treat it like one anyway. "No."

"Cut the crap, Avery. I know that you do."

"Might I remind you that I am your superior officer, Murtaugh?" Avery said with a heated tone that Murtaugh in no way believed. He would be more inclined to believe the captain if Avery had ever cared about respectful tones before. As a matter of fact, while they had still been partners, Avery had proven himself to be the more loose-tongued of the two, anyway.

"Seeing as this isn't exactly your average conversation topic between a captain and a detective, I thought we could suspend the usual "proper tone" stuff," Murtaugh said. "I've seen Riggs do some unexplainable things, Avery. I know something's up with him. And I heard you two talking, so I know that you know it, too."

Avery didn't say anything, but his silence was enough of an answer.

The captain of the precinct knowing that Riggs was, to put it mildly, _an odd fellow_ made so much sense, that Murtaugh could have kicked himself for not thinking of it before. All of the weird stuff that Riggs did-all the damage he caused-had to have been explained away by someone. Murtaugh had assumed that it was whatever friend he had in the city attorney's office, but having someone more directly tied to the occurrences providing cover stories and excuses made more strategic sense.

Having a partner that could help corroborate a cover up story would have made the most strategic sense, though.

Murtaugh wasn't feeling a bit bitter _at all._

"You probably know more than me," Avery finally said, his entire frame deflating as if he was a balloon that had gotten a bit too snuggly with a porcupine. "I've never actually seen anything conclusive." Avery could count himself lucky for that. "But the evidence is there, and he _was_ a Navy SEAL, after all."

Murtaugh frowned. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Avery leaned forwards slightly on the table, as if he was an informant in one of those crappy spy movies that was about to unload a wealth of intel in a stage whisper that the other people around them would just conveniently not overhear. Avery, at least, had the common sense to drop his voice, even though they were in the deserted break room, and not in a coffee shop or diner or whatever nondescript public place those movies always took place in.

"I have a nephew in the Navy. He's heard rumors about the SEALs. That they're all different, from us _and_ from each other. I never believed the rumors until I met Riggs. Then the things my nephew told me started making a lot more sense."

"'Different'?" Murtaugh parroted. "What, like, super soldiers? Riggs is Captain America?" More like the Winter Soldier.

"No, I mean like something straight out of an _Elder Scrolls_ game." Murtaugh raised an eyebrow. "What? Todd likes them."

"Sure. _Todd."_

The two shared a smile, the same type of playful grin that they would flash one another after a round of ribbing brought on by boredom during a particularly dull stakeout. Over their partnership, they had gotten so good at reading one another's faces, that they rarely even needed words. They had never quite gotten back into complete sync after Murtaugh's heart attack and Avery's promotion, but in that moment, it was as if they were still huddled in their car, trading jokes to pass the time.

"So you have no idea what exactly is up with Riggs?" Murtaugh asked.

"If you're asking if I know what he is, then no."

"Damn."

"You know, you could always try asking him," Avery said, as if that had ever gone well before.

"Yeah, I probably could."

"But you're not going to."

Murtaugh scoffed. "No." How would he even open that conversation? _So, Riggs, what are you? Vampire? Werewolf? Demon? Cursed by a witch?_ If he tried that, Riggs would just laugh in his face, or avoid the question, or maybe tear his face off. Probably not the last one, actually, but Murtaugh was all about self-preservation, so he felt it was best not to risk it.

Avery shook his head with a dry, mirthless laugh. "You two are made for each other," he said. "Absolute disasters that are wreaking havoc on the city's budget and my sanity, but still made for each other."

"Hey, _he's_ the menace," groused Murtaugh. "Not me."

"It takes two to tango, Roger."

* * *

The more Murtaugh tried to solve the mystery that was Martin Riggs, the more confusion-fuel he found himself throwing on the "What the HELL" fire

He didn't know how old Riggs was. Or what his middle name was. He didn't know anything about the man's childhood, nor any specifics about his time with Miranda, nor anything about his time with the SEALs. The boot-pant leg thing was still a real stumper, too.

And he had no idea what Riggs was supposed to be, if not human.

He did know, however, that Riggs _wasn't_ human; he was positive of that fact. He had mulled over that conclusion for a while, always returning to the possibility that Riggs was just under some weird curse that he might have picked up during his travels with the Navy-like some sort of exotic, mystical flu-but after his brief discussion with Avery in the break room, Murtaugh decided that Riggs well and truly was not a human. He was willing to bet that Riggs never _had_ been, if his sometimes peculiar behavior-like he had never encountered certain social norms before-was anything to go by.

Somehow, even with that knowledge, Murtaugh never thought long on the idea that Riggs might have behaviors that were natural to _him_ and whatever _he_ was that humankind had no real concept of; that he might have come from a culture that was, for all intents and purposes, entirely alien to everything Murtaugh knew. Maybe all of the weird little things Riggs did, all of the idiosyncrasies of his that turned heads and raised eyebrows and caused others to be alarmed, were commonplace with others like him.

But it took forever for Murtaugh to even think of this, because the idea that natural human behavior was the default for anything that at least _looked_ human was a hard thing to shake. And even though Murtaugh knew Riggs _wasn't_ human, he still _looked_ it, so his brain autofilled the spaces where information was missing and drew its own conclusion: Riggs was basically a human with a few...special properties.

He should have known that Riggs was so much more complicated than that.

/ / /

He didn't know what he was supposed to do.

Wasn't _that_ the mood of the year.

He had no idea how concerned he was supposed to be for Riggs, on a scale from one to ten. The man was in a sustained tailspin, had been since Murtaugh had met him, but this was different.

"He's drowning," Trish had said earlier that night, right around the time that Riggs had moved on to his fourth beer in half as many hours. The scruffy man's eyes were glazed, unfocused, drifting around the room as if they were floating freely in his skull as he somehow managed to keep up with his and R.J.'s discussion about Feather.

"I've never seen it this bad before," Murtaugh had agreed in a hushed whisper. He thought he had seen Riggs at his worst, but yet again, his partner had found a way to surprise him.

Something happened. Something _had_ to have happened to make Riggs behave like a man dying of thirst. But Murtaugh had already decided to take a step back, and give Riggs space. He would be there for the man, providing support from the shadows, but he already knew the futility of trying to confront Riggs and ask him for answers. A question of "What's bothering you?" would be met with a sarcastic response, if he got a verbal reply at all. A drugged Riggs was a regular Chatty Cathy, but a _drunk_ Riggs was as tight-lipped as ever.

Usually.

After setting Riggs up on the couch for the night-and snatching up the man's keys from where he had dropped them between the dining room and family room-Murtaugh shuffled in the direction of the stairs that would bring him to his bed, where he could pretend that he had a normal life for a few hours. A half-slurred mutter from Riggs brought him back into the room at a pace that his pride refused to call a hurried jog.

"What was that?" Murtaugh asked, rounding the couch to try and get a look at Riggs's face, half hoping that Riggs had already fallen asleep and was just mumbling to himself. But Riggs was awake, his exhaustion-fogged eyes refusing to look at his partner. For a second, Murtaugh thought Riggs wasn't going to repeat himself, or that perhaps he had just imagined that Riggs had spoken at all.

"I cheated on my wife."

Murtaugh almost wished that he had been wrong about Riggs speaking. This was in no way a conversation that Murtaugh thought that he would be having, _ever._ And despite the little voice in his saying _You can't cheat on someone who's dead,_ and his half-acknowledged desire to just walk upstairs and pretend like he hadn't heard anything-from the look on Riggs's face, he wouldn't remember the conversation in the morning, anyway-Murtaugh took a seat in an armchair with a slow, measured sigh.

Riggs saw Murtaugh's silence as an invitation to keep talking. Astoundingly, he took it.

"I didn't intentionally do it," he said. "But I cheated on her."

"...do you want to talk about it?" Murtaugh asked, tossing the words out like bait, hoping that Riggs would keep biting at it.

For the first time, Riggs craned his head up to briefly make eye contact. "We just did," he said. He resettled on the couch, pulling the sheet higher up on his chest, his haunted expression boring a hole in the opposite wall.

Murtaugh wanted to get up and leave the room; let his partner get some sleep, and perhaps get a few hours of rest himself. But something compelled him to stay where he was. He stayed perched on the edge of his armchair, his hands folded carefully between his knees, his breath caught in his throat as if the sound would spook away _something_ in the room. He didn't even blink, just sat watching his partner. He couldn't be positive, but he was sure that Riggs wasn't blinking, either.

Two minutes into the silent, one-sided staring contest, Riggs shifted on the couch. He lifted a hand to move his pillow, and when that didn't work, he raised himself up to elbow it. He settled again. He stayed still for all of thirteen seconds-Murtaugh timed it-before exploding upwards. He was kneeled in a flash, one knee up on the couch and one foot planted on the floor as he hurled the pillow across the room. It missed a lamp by mere inches.

Murtaugh, without comment, raised up off of the armchair, reclaimed the pillow, and tucked it back in its spot at the end of the couch. He returned to his seat, but Riggs stayed right as he was, his harsh breaths quick and even, his jaw clenched, his hands curling in and out of fists. His eye sockets weren't completely consumed by white light, but there was a definite glow that lurked within the depths of his pupils.

Finally, Riggs spoke, his quiet voice both clipped and gentle. "Bonds...emotional bonds are important for us. _Life and death_ important. The little ones will die without one," he said. "Not so much for the adults, seeing as they're all grown, and not for Miranda, since she was, _y'know_..." He waved broadly in Murtaugh's direction, gesturing. "But we take them seriously, because we need them to stay _sane._ Even the little bonds, the unimportant ones, the normal ones, the ones that don't fully link us to someone..." He trailed off, turning his head minutely to look at Murtaugh out of the corner of his eye, as if to try and keep the older man from seeing the heart-wrenching agony painted there. "I _cheated on her,_ Roger. I _broke the bond_. That little piece of her that I had left...it's gone."

Murtaugh didn't know what to say, what he was _supposed_ to say. "I'm sorry" was too simple, "You have me" seemed too cheap, and "I get it" would just be a straight-up lie. It was, with the feeling of his heart twisting in his chest, that Murtaugh realized that he had nothing to say; no advice to give, no kind words. He didn't have enough facts. He didn't know enough to be able to try and pull his partner out of the nosedive that he had thrown himself into. Riggs was heading towards a fiery crash, an abrupt end at the bottom of a canyon, and Murtaugh was worried that one wrong word, one _wrong assumption,_ would just have his partner throwing all of his weight on the throttle to speed up his descent.

But still, words slipped from Murtaugh's lips, unbidden.

"I wish you would just _tell me."_

It was a desperate plea, barely even a whisper in the silent room. Of course, Riggs still heard it, and he answered with a chuckle and a, "Well, ain't that a bald-faced lie."

"If you think I'm lying, Riggs, then you haven't learned that much about me." He waited for a response, but all he got was Riggs flopping back down onto his pillow with a sigh, the faint white light fading from his eyes. He rolled over, turning his back to Murtaugh. Conversation over, then. But Murtaugh couldn't leave the room without throwing another comment over his shoulder as he made his way to bed. "I'm here for you, man."

He wasn't sure if he was surprised or not when Riggs called back.

"Yeah, I know. Lord knows why."

Just as Murtaugh had suspected, come the next morning, Riggs didn't remember a thing.

/ / /

Murtaugh wasn't sure what it was, but there was something wrong with Riggs.

Wait. Backpedal. That was a no-brainer.

Something did have his attention, though, or at least half of it. Murtaugh could see it in Riggs's eyes: The way they were mostly glazed over, locked on the countertop but unfocused, as if he could see right through it. And yet he still kept up with the conversation, a lip-curling grin on his face as he laughed at whatever Murtaugh had just said-he couldn't actually remember what it was.

It was rare to see Riggs distracted. Early in their partnership, there were many times where Riggs seemed to have checked out of a conversation or a situation entirely, to the point that most people were convinced he missed things more often than not. But now, Murtaugh liked to think he knew enough about Riggs's body language to know that Riggs almost never dropped his guard. Even when he seemed to have zoned out, the way he held himself spoke differently. Murtaugh didn't know if it was an ex-SEAL thing, or a not-human thing, or if it was a combination of the two, or something else entirely. But Riggs was _always_ on guard. He was _always_ paying attention.

Except now he wasn't, evidenced by the fact that Murtaugh had been able to stick an entire slice of bread into Riggs's cup of water without the other man even raising an eyebrow. In fact, Riggs had finished draining the cup of water, and then slurped up a section of the half-disintegrated, soggy bread, which had practically left Murtaugh dry-heaving on the floor. Either Riggs had the best poker face-doubtful, since the man was a surprisingly awful liar-or he truly had not noticed. But Murtaugh couldn't figure out _why._

He refilled Riggs's glass of water, making no effort to dump out the gelatinous wheat slop that lurked at the bottom.

"You know, I would have been fine if you would have just let me go," Riggs said, which was a considerable topic change from their previous discussion on the pros and cons of drinking unfiltered water in Rio.

Murtaugh, to his credit, just went with it. He knew what Riggs was referring to, anyway; the bruise on his jaw wouldn't let him forget. "Oh really?" he asked. "How?"

"I have my ways."

"And would you have actually used them?" Murtaugh asked with a scoff.

"Mm. Probably not," Riggs hummed into his glass before taking a nice big gulp. He winced, and Murtaugh did, too. Maybe he had finally noticed the bread? "This has, like, zero kick to it."

Or maybe not.

"That's because it's water, you uncivilized beach squatter."

Riggs did his best to look offended. "Squatter!" he cried. "I'll have you know, I own the title to the RV. Ain't squatting if you own the damn place."

"It's parked on public property. You're a squatter, Riggs."

Riggs did something odd, then. He stood up from the bar stool a full three seconds before Harper began to wail from her highchair. Murtaugh twitched automatically, preparing to calm his distraught daughter, but Riggs had already beaten him to it before he had even fully formed the intention to get up off of his seat.

The scruffy man seemed to cross the room in the blink of an eye, pulling Harper from the highchair and cradling her to his chest in a protective embrace. His eyes darted around the room, his head on a swivel as he searched every corner-even the ceiling's, strangely enough-for whatever had upset the infant in his arms. At a particularly high-pitched shriek from Harper, Riggs's eyes snapped downwards just fast enough to see the furry, many-legged thing skitter across the highchair's tray table and disappear beneath it. Riggs's posture immediately loosened, and he transferred Harper to his hip.

"That's what's had you riled up all night?" Riggs asked. He slapped a hand under the tray table, drawing from beneath it an awful thing, half the size of his palm, with a horrifying face and the body of a tiger. He held it aloft by one of its many spider-like legs, dangling it just out of Harper's reach. "These things are harmless. Well, at this size, anyway." To Murtaugh's surprise, his daughter stopped sobbing almost immediately, and instead looked at the strange creature with wide, curious eyes. Riggs strode over to the back door, somehow opening it as he juggled both Harper and the spider thing. "Wave goodbye to the ōgumo!" Riggs said, right before chucking the weird spider clear over the far fence and into McNeely's yard. Without any further fanfare, Riggs returned a calmed Harper to her highchair, and reclaimed his own seat by a silent Murtaugh.

Then, and only then, did Riggs make a comment, all signs of him being distracted gone from his eyes and shoulders. "How _dare_ you refer to me as a squatter, as if I don't pay taxes to this fair city!"

Murtaugh raised an eyebrow. Oh, how he wanted to ask about that spider, and Riggs's odd behavior that seemed to revolve around his daughter.

Instead, he said, "Now I'm thinking you don't pay your taxes."

Riggs snorted. "Probably right."

* * *

How had things gone so wrong so quickly? How was there possibly this much shit available on the planet to hit the fan?

Things had been looking up. Things had been looking _better._ Riggs's relationship with Palmer hadn't _fixed_ him, per se, but the difference had been like night and day. He had been calmer, marginally closer to what the rest of society considered sane, and a bit more willing to do things Murtaugh's way when it game to their partnership. There had been less instances of Riggs doing things that would call his status as a human being in to question. Hell, his form even seemed to be more solid, falling apart less when viewed indirectly.

Riggs seemed to be _happier._ Murtaugh had really thought that the worst was over, and that life would return to some sense of normalcy.

And then that douchebag Gideon had shown up. Riggs had become fixated overnight, demanding that he be allowed in to question the killer-for-hire for some reason, as if it was the sole driving force that had gotten him out of bed that morning. He had been frenzied, more like his old self. And when he had been denied his request, he had at first been outraged, and then he had been eerily calm.

And then Gideon had vanished. He had been sprung from the prison transport by, what the security camera revealed to be, another one of Tito Flores's contractors. The way the masked man had _moved,_ though, the way that he had been so efficient and knowledgeable about what had to be done to get Gideon out without harming a single person...

A kernel of doubt had taken root in Murtaugh's stomach.

And then Murtaugh had just had to go and prove himself right. He should have stopped and ignored it; taken his chance to claim deniability. But he had clung to the foolish, starved, brittle hope that he had been wrong. That Riggs hadn't been the one to free Gideon, just so that he could ask the man the questions that needed to be asked.

But he had been right, and that fact alone had fogged his mind over with anger. He had thought he had known his partner, had thought that he could trust him to not pull such a stupid stunt. He thought that they had been on their way to being something closer to family.

He didn't know what had hurt him more: That Riggs was as unstable as ever and willing to break the law and throw everything away, or that he so clearly did not trust Murtaugh enough to _ask him for help._

Maybe if he had, Murtaugh could have talked him out of it, could have helped him find a better way.

Maybe if he had, Murtaugh wouldn't have decided that Riggs was beyond his help.

/ / /

Murtaugh couldn't tell what emotion was roiling around in his gut and making him nauseous.

Perhaps it was anger, both the residual kind from Riggs doing something so stupid, and new because Riggs apparently thought that Murtaugh would be okay with dropping everything and going to Texas to try and take down Tito Flores.

Or perhaps it was sadness, brought on by sympathy towards Riggs because of the heartache the man was suffering through.

Or perhaps it was guilt: Guilt from lying to Avery, guilt from lying to his wife, guilt from not just being upfront with Riggs. Guilt from abandoning a man that so clearly was slipping, without anybody else around to offer a hand.

The look on Riggs's face when Murtaugh blurted out that he had put in for a new partner had lasted for just a second, but Murtaugh was a detective. He was trained to catch quick, subtle expressions. He was trained to spot what people wanted to hide. The confusion and hurt passed in the blink of an eye, and was replaced with the dazed stare of resigned determination of a drunk man with nothing left to lose.

Now, without Murtaugh in his corner, perhaps that really was how Riggs felt.

As Riggs nodded and moved towards the door, Murtaugh wanted to say something else. He wanted to offer anything that might snap Riggs out of it, bring the man to his senses and show him that he was on a suicide mission. But then, Murtaugh figured that Riggs already knew that; was _counting_ on that. Anything that Murtaugh wanted to say died in his throat, lodged there half-formed in their redundancy.

His wife came up from behind, a sleepy Harper cradled in her arms. "Martin!" she cried with an authoritative tone. Riggs stopped short of opening the front door, the handle caught in a death-grip as he slammed his forehead into the wood with grit teeth and a harsh exhale through his nose. "Please, Martin, don't do this," Trish begged. She took tentative steps forward like she was approaching a snarling wolf rather than a man that refused to even look at her. "You don't have to do this. You have _us._ We're your family, Martin. We always have been, you know that."

A dry chuckle escaped Riggs's lips, echoing back at them as a hollow sound void of any actual emotion. "That's not true," he said, voice flat. "I don't fit. You wouldn't want me if you actually _understood."_

"Our feelings wouldn't change, no matter what you told us," Trish insisted. "You're part of this family." She turned a pointed stare Murtaugh's way, desperation pinching her forehead. "Right?" she asked.

Murtaugh knew what she wanted. She wanted him to agree whole-heartedly. She wanted him to show Riggs that he still had faith in him.

But Murtaugh didn't, so he _couldn't._

So he stayed silent.

Riggs chuckled again. It sounded closer to a sob. "You're a patient man, Rog," he said, words coming quickly, like if he didn't get them out now then he never would. "I'm surprised you lasted this long. Thanks for letting me pretend for a while. You guys have a good night."

He was gone before Trish could call for him again. The door swung home with a loud _bang_ of finality.

And just like that, Riggs was out of their life. The thing that Murtaugh had been wanting for months had finally come to pass. For all intents and purposes, he was free of the danger-prone, inhuman partner that he had been saddled with.

He should have felt relieved.

He didn't.

All he felt was guilt.

* * *

Murtaugh couldn't see straight. Such a thing was expected to happen, he supposed, when someone conscious and relatively healthy was shocked by a defibrillator. His heart was knocking out an awkward beat in his chest, struggling to find its rhythm again after those damned paddles had tried to mess it up. His pacemaker was still going strong, or at least he hoped it was. He had no idea if he would be able to feel if the defibrillator had fried it.

He wasn't surprised to find himself tied to a chair in some dark, dingy room, surrounded by armed gunmen. There weren't many ways that being knocked out after getting ran off the road could end, especially for a detective known for closing cases and throwing an impressive amount of assholes in jail. His company-or at least a member of it-also hadn't come as a surprise, because _of course_ Riggs was there. That was just their luck.

What had been a surprise, though, was the tail end of the conversation that Murtaugh had managed to pick up as he dragged himself back to consciousness.

"You're a hard man to kill, Martin Riggs," Gideon had said, voice laced with that distinct mocking tone that seemed to cling to every word he said. Good to know _that_ jackass was still alive and kicking.

"Oh, I _know!_ Isn't it so _annoying?"_ Riggs had sounded just as mocking.

Murtaugh had watched through half-lidded, foggy eyes as Gideon circled Riggs's chair, sneering down at the man. While he passed close enough to Murtaugh that he could have touched him, had his arms not been bound behind his back, Gideon seemed to be refusing to get within three feet of Riggs's chair. That didn't stop him from being derisive, though.

"Oh, it _was_ annoying, until I found out you were a SEAL," he said. "See, I know the little _secret_ that the SEAL teams don't want people to know. And if I know _that_ secret, I know _your_ secret. Which means I know how to keep you under control. Speaking of, how do you like your new jewelry?" Gideon asked, waving to the iron shackles clapped on Riggs's wrists and ankles, and the rope-interwoven with purple flowers-that further bound the unkempt man to his chair. Riggs looked wholly unimpressed. "So, what kind of Hellion are you? Something SEAL-worthy, otherwise they wouldn't have taken you. Basilisk? Hellhound? No, wait. A karkadann?" Riggs snorted, but otherwise didn't say anything, his lips tightly sealed. "Guess it doesn't matter. Those bindings will make sure you can't do anything, anyhow. Oh, look who's awake!"

And then Gideon had turned his focus on Murtaugh, clearly taking delight in trying to stop his heart with a life-saving device while Riggs snarled and pulled against his restraints. Murtaugh would have fought, too, but he was too busy trying to remember how moving was supposed to work.

Gideon speaking was breaking Murtaugh's concentration, though. His voice came through muffled and distorted, like Murtaugh was hearing him speak underwater. God, he hoped the defibrillator hadn't permanently damaged his hearing. Could a defibrillator even do that? Though, if he was just going to die in the next five minutes, he supposed that being deaf for what would turn out to be a very short rest of his life wasn't a major cause for concern.

"Nobody could have survived that," Gideon was saying, sinking down into a crouch to look directly into Riggs's eyes. The bound man stared back, face impassive, like he didn't even see the psychopathic douchebag seven feet away from him. "But you know what? She _did."_

"C'mon, man," Murtaugh panted, his head rolling loosely on his neck; a bobble-head with its bobble broken. Or...whatever the bobbling mechanism was called. The room was spinning too fast for Murtaugh to put his thoughts in order.

"Hey!" Gideon barked. He held up a finger to shush him, like a parent telling off a back-talking child. "I'm telling a story." He turned back to Riggs, who was starting to look a bit gray around the edges, unless Murtaugh's vision was going, too. "The truck didn't kill her. I put my hand over her mouth..." Murtaugh _had_ to be seeing things, because Riggs's skin looked like it as _crawling,_ rippling and shivering like the surface of a lake brushed by an evening breeze. The uneasy mutter going around the room, though, meant that he wasn't the only one that saw it. But Gideon didn't care, otherwise he wouldn't have said: "And _that,_ my friend, is the story on how your wife died. The end."

Riggs's head dropped to his chest, his entire body going slack. He said nothing. He didn't even look like he was _breathing_ , and Murtaugh felt like his heart really was stopping in his chest because if Riggs was _giving up_ , then they were _both_ screwed.

Gideon stood from his crouch, a mocking frown of disappointment stretching his mouth. "Nothing?" he asked. He took a step closer to Riggs, but still refused to cross that imaginary boundary that encircled the restrained man. He snapped his fingers and waited for a reaction. He received none. "Well, that's not any fun. You know what _is_ fun? Getting my money's worth. Did I mention a defibrillator is expensive to rent?" He snapped his fingers again, but this time it was towards the aforementioned machine, and towards Murtaugh, who was so not ready for another round of bullshit.

A giggle halted all action in the room before it could even begin, the paddles mere centimeters from Murtaugh's chest. Another giggle, and all eyes turned towards Riggs.

The man's shoulders were shaking. For a split second, Murtaugh thought that Riggs was _crying,_ which the man had all the right to do, but that still would have been out of character for the gruff man. He wasn't sure what was more worrying: Riggs not crying in his situation, or Riggs _showing the correct emotion when faced with certain death._

But no, it was _Riggs_ giggling, because _of course_ it was. It wasn't the kind of laugh of someone who found anything funny, but rather a deranged and mirthless sound that got louder and higher pitched and _faster;_ the sound of someone who had too many cracks and not enough duct tape.

And Riggs just kept on giggling, his voice the only sound in the room as he sunk more and more into himself, collapsing and folding at the waist until his forehead was almost pressed against his knees, the ropes biting into his chest and arms to the point that he shouldn't have been able to breathe anymore.

And in that laughter were words, sentences barely strung together enough to be understandable. "You don't even know," he laughed, followed by a groan like a knife was twisting in his gut. "Don't even know what-" He broke off with a grunt, his shoulders jumping with the sound of joints grinding. "Don't even _know!"_

Bones cracking had a very distinctive sound. It was like a crunch with just a bit of a wet slurp. Everybody in the room was familiar with the sound, for one reason or another, so they all knew that that was exactly what the sound was when it echoed off of the pipes and damp concrete.

Murtaugh had been present at a suicide once, when he was still new and not the one people turned to talk someone off of a ledge. He had stood by, ashen-faced and shocked, when the jumper's body hit the ground with a thud and a horrible crunch of shattering bone.

It was the same exact sound, except it was coming from _Riggs,_ who definitely hadn't just taken a swan dive into the parking lot of a Home Depot.

If there was any sort of doubt in mind about what the cracking, crunching, _shattering_ sound was, it was quickly wiped away when Riggs suddenly lurched even farther in his chair and twisted his shoulders. The jagged ends of bones tore through his flesh, piercing his arms and legs, his shoulders falling slack as they slipped free from their sockets and hung loosely at his sides. Blood poured from Riggs's eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth, coating his jagged, shark-like teeth.

And still, he _giggled._

Riggs jerked upright with a figurative and literal snap, like his spine had just broken in two. The rippling under his skin surged and split his flesh like wet paper, opening up tears across his arms and face, where the bones hadn't already pierced.

"You don't even _know,"_ he laughed. _"Fancy jewelry's for stopping Hellions?"_ Riggs's head lolled to the side at an angle that couldn't have been possible without a shattered neck, his voice echoing in his throat, as if three of him were talking at once at different octaves from one another. _"Bit of news for you, fuckface."_ He focused right in on Gideon, whose face was white and eyes sunken in terror, all orders to _fire_ and _kill it_ caught in his throat, like he was under a spell. Riggs's eyes blazed white, the cracks of light spreading outwards from his eye sockets.

And still, he _laughed._

 _"I'm not a Hellion."_

With the rushing sound of a freight train, Riggs _exploded._

One moment he was sat in the chair, bleeding and _dying,_ and the next, something like black smoke tore right through him and shredded him to nothing.

It was huge, like a cloud of billowing, living shadow, and in the center burned a white light that pulsated and flickered like a beating heart.

Murtaugh wasn't entirely sure how to describe it. He wasn't even entirely sure that he hadn't died when his attention had lapsed, and somehow wound up in Hell. He almost hoped that was the case, because here, now, the _present_ didn't make a lick of sense, and he just wanted it to _stop._

Gideon's little buddies probably wanted it to stop, too, because that indescribable mass of shadow-smoke slammed into the closest one without even a beat of hesitation. As far as Murtaugh could tell, the thing had no mouth, but it still was able to give a roar straight from the pits of Hell as it ran its victim up against and _through_ the wall, right into a subway that was passing by.

That man didn't stand a chance.

The smarter of Gideon's cronies-and Gideon himself-had fled the room the moment the living smoke pile-drove their colleague through a solid concrete wall. One man, though, thought it was best to stand his ground and try to rain hellfire down on the thing with his assault rifle.

The first bullet whistled through the shadow-smoke and struck the opposite wall. The others never even got close to hitting any part of the thing, because it sank to the floor and seemed to morph, taking on the crude shape of some four-legged, long-tailed thing that skittered across the floor like something straight out of Ridley Scott's worst nightmares. It leapt on the man with an unearthly howl, shadowy claws and maw ripping through him.

The second man fell, the shadow-smoke regained its indescribable form, and Murtaugh was left alone and tied to a chair in a room with H.P. Lovecraft's horrific muse.

The thing didn't have a head, or a face, or even _eyes_ from what Murtaugh could see. And yet he could feel it staring at him.

And then it was on him, enveloping him in darkness, and he was drifting and _sinking_ and _drowning._

Except...he wasn't.

The darkness pressed in on all sides, but it didn't crowd him. He couldn't see anything, but seeing wasn't necessary because for the first time since Gideon had reared his head, Murtaugh felt _warm_ and _safe_ and like he could _finally take a freaking breath._ A muffled sound filled his ears, like a heartbeat heard from the bottom of a well, and he felt _remorse_ and _concern_ and a dull _pain_ that wasn't his.

And then he heard gunfire, and the heartbeat was drowned out by _rage_ and a need to _protect_ and for _revenge,_ all of which was carried on an earth-shattering roar.

The darkness cleared as the shadow-smoke streaked out of the room. Murtaugh got a glimpse of two men with assault rifles at the end of the hallway, both spraying bullets without a definitive target, before the shadow-smoke expanded and took up the entire hallway in a horizontal vortex that scraped the walls and ceiling and floor, leaving white gouges in the cement in its wake.

The gunfire halted, the shadow-smoke hooked a right at the end of the hallway, and the men were just _gone,_ two bloodied rifles deposited on the ground like common trash.

Murtaugh was alone, a bloodied corpse his only company.

He decided, after a beat, that he was not a fan of his location, and that it was in his best interest to leave. The only issue was the rope that bound him.

Except there _was_ no rope anymore. Well, there was still rope, but it was on the ground behind his chair, sliced through by something sharp. That was one issue out of _one thousand_ taken care of.

Murtaugh figured he deserved a moment, all things considered, so he took one. He sat in his chair and rubbed his bruised wrists, and did his best to get his shirt to stay closed when only half of the buttons had stuck around. He felt as if he was in a daydream, floating along and following events without actually really understanding them. He liked dreams for that reason: Anything made sense, no matter how illogical.

Looking around the room, smelling the blood and sweat, and something akin to the scent of ozone and a forest after a heavy rain, Murtaugh really wished it was a dream.

With a detached air, he looked to the seat where Riggs had been sitting. The ropes and shackles were shredded and smashed, lying in a ring around the chair, which had been cracked right down the middle and stained a blackish-red. Draped across the seat, forgotten, was Riggs's beloved jacket-most of it looking no better than the chair it rested on-and tipped over on the floor were his scuffed boots.

Murtaugh leaned sideways, just managing to get a grip on one of the torn sleeves to drag the jacket into his lap. Hellish roars echoing down the halls, each accented by rapid and desperate gunfire, Murtaugh did his best to smooth out the tears before folding the jacket over his arm.

Following the carnage wasn't hard. Whenever physical traces were too few for him to find and follow, terrified screaming acted as a good substitute.

At the end of the trail, he found what he was looking for, although in a place that was less than ideal.

Riggs, once again a shape befitting a human, had Gideon pinned in the middle of the subway tracks. Even with shark teeth, white eyes, and that indescribable _something_ writhing beneath his skin, just waiting to burst forth again, Riggs somehow still looked ridiculous. Or maybe Riggs's brand of crazy really was contagious, and it had finally spread to Murtaugh.

 _"Where is he?"_ Riggs bellowed, his voice still that frightening echo. Gideon stuttered, eyes wide and entire body shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm. His head snapped backwards and collided with a rail when Riggs's fist smashed his nose into a bloody pulp. _"Where is Tito Flores?"_

"Riggs!" Murtaugh called in warning, not because of Gideon rough treatment-because _damn_ did he deserve it-but because Murtaugh had taken note of a new issue: The subway was hurtling towards them at a speed that made his knees weak and heart seize. Riggs didn't even look up as he continued to yell and snarl and slam Gideon's head into the subway railing. _"Riggs!"_

And then the subway was on them and _past_ them with a thundering roar and a wet squelch of yielding flesh meeting unforgiving metal.

Bile bubbled at the back of Murtaugh's throat, sour and burning. He didn't want to check- _couldn't_ check-to see what, if any, body parts had been amputated by rail wheel and thrown clear of the tracks.

He didn't need to check.

Movement caught his eye through the windows of the passing train. Shadows moved when they shouldn't, existing in places where the overhead lights should have burned them away.

Relief flooded through him when he saw that it was Riggs, completely back to normal, if not a little pale. His eyes, which had been trained on the gory scene Murtaugh was all too ready to ignore, rose up to meet Murtaugh's gaze.

 _You're alive,_ Murtaugh wanted to say. _You got him. You won,_ he wanted to laugh. _You've got a metric shitton of explaining to do._

He said none of these things, because Riggs dipped his head at him in a nod that was strikingly resolute and final.

Between one window and the next, Riggs was gone.

* * *

Murtaugh hovered.

He was good at that. As a dad, and as senior detective, he had perfected the skill.

He liked to think that it made him look intimidating; a silent, unmoving pillar of strength and badassness. As his kids grew older and more flippant, him hovering lost its intimidating effect, and gained a more annoying one. He was pretty sure it still worked with criminals, though. He hoped it did.

His hovering now wasn't supposed to be intimidating or make him look impressive.

Now, him leaning against the wall in his bedroom, in the middle of the night and enveloped by darkness, was because he was _stuck._ Because he was hesitant and worried, and wanted to just stare at his sleeping wife for as long as he could, memorizing the way her hair fanned out across her pillow like a mane, how she tucked her chin into her chest, the way she sighed in her sleep. He wanted- _needed_ -to memorize every little thing about her, and feel confident in those memories, or he didn't think he'd ever be able to leave.

Even in her sleep, Trish knew when her husband was upset about something. She was awake and alert in an instant, twisting to sit up against the headboard.

"Why don't you come to bed?" she whispered. Based on her tone of voice, she already knew the answer she was going to receive.

Still, he circled the bed, and sat next to her. He laid Riggs's tattered jacket across his lap, fingers playing with a loose thread along the bottom hem. It was one loose thread in hundreds, it seemed. The jacket was a _wreck._ Riggs really needed to get a new one, in his opinion.

"I can't yet," he said. "There's something I've got to do."

Like bring his crazy, idiot partner his stupid boots. Maybe he'd hit Riggs over the head with them for good measure.

Murtaugh stood up from the bed, but Trish caught his wrist and stopped him.

"Remember our one rule," she said. "You come back to me."

He nodded, a small smile pulling at his lips. "I remember."

Trish tugged the jacket from Murtaugh's hands. She refolded it, and then placed it on the edge of her nightstand. It had a date tomorrow with ammonia and her sewing machine. The bullet hole in the shoulder, she decided, could stay, but no family of hers was going to be caught walking around in a jacket with more holes than the plot of an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

"Bring our strange boy home."

Murtaugh smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

He was going to do just that, no matter how far he had to go.

And after he saved Riggs, and Tito Flores was behind bars, and all was said and done, _then_ they were going to sit down and have a nice, long chat.

Murtaugh had known from the start that there was something off about Martin Riggs.

And he was still going to find out what.

But first, he had a crazy partner to find.

* * *

 **A/N:** And that completes "For a While"! Thanks for reading, guys! And if you are familiar with my AO3 account then you already know this, but a sequel is in the works. I've found that I love writing for this AU way too much to just leave it here. I hope you guys will stick around and read it once I get it written!


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